Health Services officials screening travellers at the Murtala Muhammed
International Airport in Lagos..
South-West
governors on Wednesday rose from a meeting in Lagos and called on the
Federal Government to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.
Before that, the Minsiter of Health,
Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu and the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr.
Jide Idris, announced at separate news conferences that the matron of
the Lagos hospital where a Liberian-born American, Patrick Sawyer, was
admitted, died on Tuesday afternoon.
The matron whose name was not given by
Chukwu,and Idris, was reported by the media on Wednesday to have
shown the symptoms of the virus.
She was among the health workers that
attended to Sawyer who died in the Lagos hospital on July 25 and
officially, the first Nigerian casualty.
The matron had been quarantined alongside seven others at the Infectious Diseases Hospital, Yaba, Lagos for close monitoring.
One of them, a female medical doctor, who also attended to Sawyer, had also contracted the disease.
About 59 people were reported to have had
direct or primary contacts with the Liberian-American. Twenty seven
others who had secondary contacts with the primary contacts had been
traced.
Chukwu, while announcing the death of the
Lagos matron confirmed seven other Ebola cases, Idris called on
religious groups in the state to stop all gatherings until a solution
to Ebola outbreak was found.
The South-West governors first met behind
closed-doors at the Lagos House, Ikeja, and later with
commissioners for Health in the zone.
In attendance were the host Governor,
Babatunde Fashola; Olusegun Mimiko(Ondo); Ibikunle Amosun(Ogun);
Kayode Fayemi(Ekiti); and the Deputy Governor of Oyo State, Moses
Adeyemo.
They said the Federal Government must
assist the states by ensuring that all the nation’s borders in the zone
were effectively policed to ensure that Ebola virus did not get into
their states.
Fashola, at a news conference said the
meeting afforded them the opportunity to share experiences and seek
collaborative efforts to prevent the spread of the virus in the zone.
He said, “The meeting addressed issues of containment and the challenges of illegal borders.
“We also discussed possible support by
the Federal Government and coordination among states. We feel that it is
imperative that our collaboration suggests to us that Nigerians should
not panic and that we would overcome this with the very best practices
and collaboration.
“It is important therefore that advocacy must continue about what the risks are and the sources are.”
Amosun said Ogun State was overwhelmed
and was short of manpower and material to effectively man its over 100
illegal borders where foreigners enter the state with ease.
He said, “We are more prone and more at
risk to Ebola virus and we have put all our security agencies and the
respective medics at these illegal borders.
“But when you have in excess of 100, you and I know that the state doesn’t have the capacity to man these borders.
Mimiko said the onus lay on every Nigerian to ensure that foreigners did not have unfettered access into the country.
“Every Nigerian should know that those
who aid and abet illegal entry into Nigeria now could be up to something
that could be dangerous to the health of the country.”
Fayemi spoke on the possibility of
Nigeria seeking the assistance of the United States for ZMapp, an
experimental drug for the treatment of the EVD.
He said, “The drug has not been certified
as a cure for the disease; however, the Federal Government can try out
its efficacy in a controlled centre.”
FG confirms seven Ebola cases
The Health minister, at a news conference in Abuja on Wednesday, said, “Nigeria has now recorded seven confirmed cases of EVD.
“The first one was the index case, which is the imported case from Liberia of which the victim(Sawyer) is now late.
“On August 5, 2014, the first known
Nigerian to die of the EVD was recorded and this was one of the nurses
that attended to the Liberian.
“The other five cases are currently being treated at an isolation ward in Lagos.”
He added that all the Nigerians diagnosed were primary contacts of the index case.
Chukwu also announced the appointment of
Prof. O. Onajole of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital as the
director, Communication and Community Mobilisation. for the EVD.
He pledged to visit Lagos within the
week, in company with his colleagues in the Ministry of Information, to
assess the situation on the ground.
He added that the 24/7 Emergency
Operations Centre planned by the government would be fully functional
by tomorrow (Thursday) . Dr. Faisal Shuaibu will be the Incident Manager
of the centre.
Shuaibu was expected to lead a
six-member inter-agency team, drawn from the National Primary Health
Care Development Agency, the US CDC, the WHO, UNICEF and the Bill and
Medinda Gates Foundation to Lagos to complete the setting up of the
centre.
Chukwu said the team would be joined by
other personnel from the Lagos State Government, federal hospitals
in the state and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
He added, “We are embarking on recruiting
additional health personnel to strengthen the team who are currently
managing the situation in Lagos.
“We are making arrangements to procure
isolation tents to quicken the pace of providing isolation wards in all
the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
“We are also setting up a special team to
provide counselling and psychosocial support to patients, identified
contacts and their families.”
The minister reassured Nigerians that the government was working hard to ensure the containment of the outbreak.
Chukwu later told State House
correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja,
that he had requested the experimental drug being used to treat two
American missionary doctors infected with the virus in Liberia from the
US Centre for Disease Control.
The minister, who also shed light on the
isolation tents, said as of the time he was briefing journalists, he had
yet to receive a response from the USCDC.
Chukwu explained that the isolation tents would be used to cater for those who might be quarantined because of the virus.
This, he said, had become necessary because residents were raising objection to housing the patients close to them.
He put the cost of one isolation tent at about N20m.
“We have a national emergency. Indeed,
everyone in the world is at risk. Nobody is immune. The Nigerian
experience had alerted the world because every country is connected by
flights,” the minister said.
The minister also said the government had
decided to embark on mass recruitment of health personnel to strenghten
the team managing the outbreak in Lagos.
He expressed the hope that the Nigeria
Medical Association would soon call off its strike to join in the
emergency service since government had met almost all their demands.
Chukwu warned members of the public to
stop wearing gloves as a way of stopping the spread of the virus, saying
such practice could further compound the situation.
He however advised them to avoid
handshake as much as possible if they could afford it, describing the
virus as both contagious and infectious.
He said the virus could also be
contracted through the sharing of bedspreads, pillow cases and towels
among other personal effects with infected persons.
Chukwu also said a website, www.ebolaalert.org, had been designed to offer information on the virus.
While disclosing the existence of a
Twitter handle, @ebolaalert, the minister added that help could also be
reached through a designated toll-free telephone line .
Ebola outbreak, national emergency –FG
The Federal Government also said on Wednesday that the Ebola outbreak had become a matter of national emergency.
The Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran
Maku; made government’s position known while also briefing journalists
on the outcome of the FEC meeting
Maku said the meeting was devoted to the measures being taken by government to deal with the outbreak of the virus.
He recalled that the council had set up a committee about two weeks ago to sensitise Nigerians to avoid unhealthy practices.
Lagos to offer life insurance cover to doctors, others
In Lagos, Idris told journalists that
the matron, who also contracted the EVD while participating in managing
Sawyer died at about 2.06pm on Tuesday.
The commissioner added, ‘In all, eight
people came in contact with Sawyer, comprising the dead matron, the
doctor on admission at the IDH, the four new victims and two other
people, whose medical test results are being awaited. Two of the four
new victims are critically ill.”
Idris said that 27 people who came into contact with those on admission at the IDH had as of Tuesday been traced.
When asked what government intended to do
concerning the traced secondary contacts, he replied, “ We cannot
isolate these 27 secondary contacts because they are not showing
symptoms yet, they are just contacts.
“What we can do for now is to monitor
them; take their blood samples for testing and check their temperature
daily. If any one of them starts showing symptoms, then we will take him
or her to the hospital.”
He called on volunteers to help the state
in tracing more secondary contacts and in managing the established
cases since the situation was “a dire emergency.”
The commissioner said the state was
presently facing a shortage of health workers needed to attend to
those that had been infected and more of those that might be
isolated for monitoring.
He disclosed that the government would
offer life insurance cover to those who volunteered to work with
experts monitoring and testing suspected Ebola cases.
Idris said, “We will provide life
insurance cover for any doctor, nurse and other experts that want to
work with isolated patients.
“We need more hands, because we have
moved from the stage of primary contacts to secondary contacts.We are
tracing all the people that had contacts not just with Sawyer, but those
that had contacts with the health workers and others that have died. We
have identified 27 secondary contacts already and we are tracing the
addresses of others.
“ it is a tedious task, because we will also be taking their blood samples for testing and we will be monitoring them.
“We are appealing to the doctors on
strike to resume work and set aside their grievances. This situation is a
dire emergency and our health professionals must recognise that.
“It will be morally unjustifiable for us
to call for help from the international community if our own experts and
doctors are not working.”
Idris added that the government would
evacuate tuberculosis patients at the IDH to another hospital to
accommodate more suspected and isolated Ebola cases.
He said, “ The TB patients at Mainland
hospital were protesting this(Wednesday) morning but we made them to
understand that if they stayed there, they might be exposed to Ebola
virus .
“If we need to evacuate any hospital to
ensure that we contain this(Ebola) disease, we will do it. If we have to
take suspected cases to LASUTH, we will do it. If we need to take
decisions that will inconvenience some people but beneficial to the
larger population, we will do it because Ebola is a highly infectious
disease.”
Religious groups advised to stop gatherings
The commissioner also advised religious
groups in the state to stop all planned gatherings until a solution to
the Ebola outbreak was found.
Idris, who noted that such gatherings usually involved people from outside the country, said the advice was in public interest.
He said, “We are worried that a gathering
of a large group of people would not be the best at this period. Those
churches and Islamic associations that are planning large gatherings
should stop for now.
“When we heard that there was a
convention going on at the Redemption Camp of the Redeemed Christian
Church of God in Ogun State, we went there to check.
“We were impressed with what was on the
ground because of the outbreak. There were sanitisers everywhere,
doctors and other health workers were on standby. The General
Overseer(Pastor Enoch Adeboye) also took time to educate people on the
virus and what could be done to prevent it.
“We also went to Synagogue church when we
heard that they were planning a conference on Ebola. But the truth is
that there was nothing like that. The founder(TB Joshua) told us that he
was planning to travel out. He also promised to cooperate with the
government.
“But the best thing is that any form of large gathering must stop for now.”
(PUNCH)
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